Dubai: The spiralling cost of living is giving jitters to expatriate Arab housewives who may have to go home leaving their husbands here.
Housewives from low income expatriate Arab families expressed fears that their husbands will take second wives after sending them home as rent and school fees continue to rise.
Umm Ahmad, a 34-year-old Egyptian woman, told Gulf News she feared having to share her husband with a second wife after being sent back to Egypt with her children as her husband can no longer afford to keep them in Dubai.
Temporary marriage
"It's very common here. Men who are used to having a wife for companionship and household chores cannot do without them. They need a woman with them all the time," she said, adding that she knew of many women who had suffered the same fate, and expected the same for herself.
Women who spoke to Gulf News said men find it more "feasible" to take a second wife who they don't intend to have children with, than support a whole family here.
"I know of one Egyptian man who married a hairdresser and moved into her apartment. She has a job too, so he doesn't have many expenses and has no dependants here," said Umm Ahmad.
Her husband Fat'hi told Gulf News he was planning to send his family home but said he did not plan to marry again. "Of course it's hard to live without a wife, but I plan to move into another apartment with other bachelors to save on rent and utilities," said the 50-year-old.
The Egyptian consul general in Dubai, Ebrahim Hafez, said although it was common for Egyptian expatriates to send their families home and remarry, it was not a "phenomenon" in the 200,000 strong Egyptian community in the UAE.
"The impression I have is that [such cases do] exist. That's what I hear but I don't think it is widespread," he said.
Having lived in Dubai for 32 years, the General Manager of the Egyptian Club, Ebrahim Noor, said such cases were "not a trend" but that "they do happen".
Short-lived
"The problem is that we don't know much about it because it's a sensitive subject which not a lot of people talk about," he said. "We heard of such cases before, when men would take second wives after sending their families back, without the intention of staying with them for too long," he added.
Umm Jasem, a mother of nine, said her Yemeni neighbour was sent back to her country after living in the UAE "for decades" when her husband realised he could no longer afford to support a family here.
The husband, she said, remarried after sending his family back to Yemen and became so accustomed to his new lifestyle "that he neglected his old family".
"Her family completely disintegrated when the father sent them away. The mother had to struggle to bring up the abandoned children," she said.
posted
But that makes no sense at all, if they cant afford to keep a family and send their wife home, with the kids, which they will still need to support. Why then would they get another wife to live with them so they can buy her a house too? and have two houses to keep.
I think the want for a second wife is what drives them to send the first away, not the finances.
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